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Fundamentals Quotes

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Fundamentals Quotes

“The farmer and the farm, like "the environment," are looked upon, for example, as means to offset trade deficits. The farm is a place where we can externalize costs. The cost of pesticides to the farmer and the cost of the pesticides to the soil and groundwater are regarded similarly by the public: "a serious problem that something ought to be done about." But the problem is more fundamental than this glib statement would indicate, for soil pollution is an expense of production. So are pesticides and nitrates in our farm wells. So is the loss of farmers from the land.”

“The issue presented is whether the Federal Constitution confers a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy, and hence invalidates the laws of the many States that still make such conduct illegal, and have done so for a very long time.... Respondent would have us announce, as the Court of Appeals did, a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do.”

“The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. To be sure, theology is always yielding a little to the progress of knowledge, and only a Holy Roller in the mountains of Tennessee would dare to preach today what the popes preached in the Thirteenth Century, but this yielding is always done grudgingly, and thus lingers a good while behind the event.”

“Our teaching of mathematics revolves around a fundamental conflict. Rightly or wrongly, students are required to master a series of mathematical concepts and techniques, and anything that might divert them from doing so is deemed unnecessary. Putting mathematics into its cultural context, explaining what is has done for humanity, telling the story of its historical development, or pointing out the wealth of unsolved problems or even the existence of topics that do not make it into school textbooks leaves less time to prepare for the exam. So most of these things aren't discussed.”

“It has long been my personal view that the separation of practical and theoretical work is artificial and injurious. Much of the practical work done in computing, both in software and in hardware design, is unsound and clumsy because the people who do it have not any clear understanding of the fundamental design principles of their work. Most of the abstract mathematical and theoretical work is sterile because it has no point of contact with real computing.”

“I love Thanksgiving. I truly do. Every last thing about it is wonderful. I love getting together with family and friends. I love the meal. I love the football. I love the four-day weekend without having anything that particularly has to get done. And of course, I love the fundamental idea behind it-giving thanks for all the good people and good things in your life.”

“I discovered early on that the player who learned the fundamentals of basketball is going to have a much better chance of succeeding and rising through the levels of competition than the player who was content to do things his own way. A player should be interested in learning why things are done a certain way. The reasons behind the teaching often go a long way to helping develop the skill.”

“All of Robert Caro's biographies are exceptional, in part because of Caro's fundamental ambivalence about power. He sees its necessity and use for getting things done, even as he is often repelled by watching power at close range. His masterpiece on Robert Moses, The Power Broker, describes the evolution of Moses from idealist to pragmatist as he became one of the most powerful figures in the 20th century.”

“While President Barack Obama has, in one sense, tipped his hand by saying that he wants judges with "empathy" for certain groups, he has in a more fundamental sense concealed the real goal - getting judges who will ratify an ever-expanding scope of the power of the federal government and an ever-declining restraint by the Constitution of the United States. This is consistent with everything else that Obama has done in office and is consistent with his decades-long track record of alliances with people who reject the fundamentals of American society.”

“As a physician who knows the importance of body image to our overall health, I wanted to have a way to inspire women to love their bodies no matter what size or shape they are. This is possible!!! And I know EXACTLY how to do this because I've done it myself and I've helped thousands of others to do the same thing. It's women's health at its most fundamental level!”

“How to do meditation, many people ask. Don't do anything, just go into thoughtless awareness. Try to go to the thoughtless awareness. If you can get into that condition of thoughtless awareness, you've done your job because that's the point where you are with the truth, with the reality, with the joy, with everything that is so fundamental.”

“The fundamental idea of these pylons, or great archways, is based on a method of construction peculiar to me, of which the principle consists in giving to the edges of the pyramid a curve of such a nature that this pyramid shall be capable of resisting the force of the wind without necessitating the junction of the edges by diagonals as is usually done.”

“I learned from my illiterate but wise mother that all rights to be deserved and preserved came from duty well done. Thus the very right to live accrues to us only when we do the duty of citizenship of the world. From this one fundamental statement, perhaps it is easy enough to define the duties of Man and Woman and correlate every right to some corresponding duty to be first performed. Every other right can be shown to be a usurpation hardly worth fighting for.”

“I am with the South in life or death, in victory or defeat. I believe the North is about to wage a brutal and unholy war on a people who have done them no wrong, in violation of the Constitution and the fundamental principles of government. They no longer acknowledge that all government derives its validity from the consent of the governed. They are about to invade our peaceful homes, destroy our property, and murder our men and dishonor our women. We propose no invasion of the North, no attack on them, and only ask to be left alone.”

“I consider it…as subverting the fundamental and characteristic principle of the Government…and as bidding defiance to the sense in which the Constitution is known to have been proposed, advocated, and adopted. If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one.”

“The fundamental problem with golf is that every so often, no matter how lacking you may be in the essential virtues required of a steady player, the odds are that one day you will hit the ball straight, hard, and out of sight. This is the essential frustration of this excruciating sport. For when you've done it once, you make the fundamental error of asking yourself why you can't do this all the time. The answer to this question is simple: the first time was a fluke.”

“I think it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.”